Believers in human-caused global climate change have been placed under an uncomfortable spotlight recently. That is thanks to the Climategate scandal, centering on e-mails hacked from the influential Climate Research Unit (CRU) at Englands University of East Anglia. The e-mails show scientists from various academic institutions hard at work suppressing dissent from other scientists who have doubts on global warming, massaging research data to fit preconceived ideas, and seeking to manipulate the gold standard peer review process to keep skeptical views from being heard.

Does this sound familiar at all? To me, as a prominent skeptic of modern Darwinian theory, it sure does. For years, Darwin-doubting scientists have complained of precisely such abuses, committed by Darwin zealots in academia.

There have been parallels cases where e-mail traffic was released showing Darwinian scientists displaying the same contempt for fair play and academic openness as we see now in the climate emails. One instance involved a distinguished astrophysicist at Iowa State University, Guillermo Gonzalez, who broke ranks with colleagues in his department over the issue of intelligent design in cosmology. Released under the Iowa Open Records Act, e-mails from his fellow scientists at ISU showed how his department conspired against him, denying Dr. Gonzales tenure as retribution for his views.

To me, the most poignant correspondence emerging from CRU e-mails involves discussion about punishing a particular editor at a peer-reviewed journal who was defying the orthodox establishment by publishing skeptical research.

In 2004, a peer-reviewed biology journal at the Smithsonian Institution published a technical essay of mine presenting a case for intelligent design. Colleagues of the journals editor, an evolutionary biologist, responded by taking away his office, his keys and his access to specimens, placing him under a hostile supervisor and spreading disinformation about him. Ultimately, he was demoted, prompting an investigation of the Smithsonian by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

The public has been intimidated into thinking that non-experts have no right to question consensus views in science. But the scandal in at the University of East Anglia suggests that this consensus on climate may not be based on solid evidence.

But what about the Darwin debate? We are told that the consensus of scientists in favor of Darwinian evolution means the theory is no longer subject to debate. In fact, there are strong scientific reasons to doubt Darwins theory and what it allegedly proved.

For example, contrary to Darwinian orthodoxy, the fossil record actually challenges the idea that all organisms have evolved from a single common ancestor. Why? Fossil studies reveal a biological big bang near the beginning of the Cambrian period (520 million years ago) when many major, separate groups of organisms or phyla (including most animal body plans) emerged suddenly without clear precursors.

While all scientists accept that natural selection can produce small-scale micro-evolutionary variations, many biologists now doubt that natural selection and random mutations can generate the large-scale changes necessary to produce fundamentally new structures and forms of life.

Thus more than 800 scientists, including professors from such institutions as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale and Rice universities and members of various national (U.S., Russian, Czech, Polish) academies of science have signed a statement questioning the creative power of the selection/mutation mechanism.

Increasingly, the Darwinian idea that living things only appear to be designed has come under scrutiny. Indeed, living systems display telltale signs of actual or intelligent design such as the presence of complex circuits, miniature motors and digital information in living cells. The information and information-processing systems that run the show in cells point with a particular clarity to prior design. The DNA molecule stores instructions in the form of a four-character digital code, similar to a computer code. As we know from our repeated experience -- the basis of all scientific reasoning -- systems possessing such features always arise from minds, not material processes.

Thus, despite the orthodox view that Darwin showed design could arise without a designer there is now compelling scientific evidence to the contrary.

The question of biological origins has long raised profound philosophical questions. Have lifes endlessly diverse forms been the result of purely material processes or did a purposeful intelligence play a role? Its not surprising that such an ideologically charged issue would illicit strong passions, leading even scientists to suppress dissenting views with which they disagree.

All the more reason -- in this debate as in the one about global warming -- to let the evidence, rather than the consensus of experts, determine the outcome.

-- Dr. Meyer is director for the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He is author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, honored in the Times Literary Supplement as one of the best books of 2009. He received his Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University.

Yes, and apparently being an Astrophysicist makes one an “evolutionist”.

Being ANY type of real scientist must, because creationism is antithetical to the scientific method; and creationists must lie about science out of necessity; trusting that their target audience is, as a group, the most ignorant of science and the most bereft of education.

5
posted on 12/22/2009 8:02:11 AM PST
by allmendream
(Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be RE-distributed?)

The Left is comprised of superstitious kooks of the worst religion on the planet, Political Correctness. There disdain for Creationists is some phony vanity. All one has to do is mention genetic science and human bio-diversity and these emotionally stunted runts start trilling like terrorist supporting old women.

Released under the Iowa Open Records Act, e-mails from his fellow scientists at ISU showed how his department conspired against him, denying Dr. Gonzales tenure as retribution for his views.

For those of you who don't already know...

Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez is now Associate professor at the great undergraduate college -- GROVE CITY COLLEGE , where he has complete freedom to teach what he wishes. The school has been in existence for over 130 years.

The college acquired an observatory from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in February 2008 that will be utilized for astronomy classes as well as faculty and student research. The observatory's telescope will be operated more than 60 miles away remotely from the college's main campus. The purchase of the property, three buildings and equipment inside will pave the way for the addition of an astronomy minor on campus. Through this observatory, the college's physics department plans to work with area public schools as well as other colleges and universities on educational and research projects and draw prospective students who are looking for strong physics programs and astronomy coursework.

Dr. Gonzalez actually works in this observatory. This is FYI.

Incidentally, Grove City College is one of the handful of colleges I know ( the other being Hillsdale College ) that REFUSES to take any Federal money whatsoever. Students who enroll and do not have enough money for their tuition are aided via PRIVATE scholarship grants. They don't want any government interference in what they do and how they educate their students.

"But the scandal in at the University of East Anglia suggests that this consensus on climate may not be based on solid evidence."

This is why I've come to despise Human Events. - "may not?" - There is not a shred of their 'consensus' that has any relationship whatsoever to science. (is there a new discipline of science called Hoaxology?) - Why do these writers lack any vestige of a spine?

12
posted on 12/22/2009 9:26:08 AM PST
by editor-surveyor
(The beginning of the O'Bomb-a administration looks a lot like the end of the Nixon administration)

Distrust over "Science Says" in in the public mind in regard to AGW will inevitably lead to an erosion of public support for "Science Says" in the Evo-Creo catfight.

Evolutionists who have doubts about AGW should speak up if they expect to dominate the "origins" field in the public's consiousness as much as they do now. They will pay a price for their apparent lack of critical thinking skills.

18
posted on 12/22/2009 10:22:23 AM PST
by cookcounty
(Let us not speak of the honor of men. Rather, let us bind them with the Constitution. --Jefferson)

The following, that somewhat supports creationism, is from page 70 of "Darwin's Ghost" by Steve Jones.

Natural selection is a machine that makes almost impossible things. Consider a typical protein such as whale myoglobin. That molecule is but one of a hundred thousand or so proteins in the animals body and contains a hundred and fifty-three units called amino acids. These come in about twenty forms. The number of possible combinations of amino acids in a structure the size of myoglobin is hence twenty raised to the power of a hundred and fifty three. The figure, ten with about two hundred zeros after it, is beyond imagination and is far more than all the proteins in all the whales, all the animals and all the plants that have ever lived. Such a molecule could never arise by accident. Instead, a rather ordinary device, natural selection, has carved out not just myoglobin but millions of other proteins and the organisms they build.

Got a good link for that? Somewhat interested in this topic, not rabid either way. Do see a problem with just random mutation plus natural selection creating a functional 750 megabyte piece of code (est of info content of human DNA) even over billions of years. That’s why I think the modern ToE is at least missing some parts. My hunch is that there is some evironment->genetic code feedback process we don’t understand yet.

(For the record, I see evolution as the tool God used to create us and other life. Uh oh, probably offended both hard core evolutionists and hard core creationists with that one!)

20
posted on 12/22/2009 10:57:15 AM PST
by piytar
(Ammo is hard to find! Bought some lately? Please share where at www.ammo-finder.com)

Modern Evolutionary Synthesis Got a good link for that? Somewhat interested in this topic, not rabid either way.

Plug it into your favorite search engine along with "Ronald Fisher evolution" and "Edmund Ford evolution" for starters.

Do see a problem with just random mutation plus natural selection creating a functional 750 megabyte piece of code (est of info content of human DNA) even over billions of years. Thats why I think the modern ToE is at least missing some parts.

It isn't the ToE that's missing parts (although it is incomplete like most scientific models and theories). What you cite are strawmen propagated by anti-evolutionists. "Random mutation and natural selection" leaves out the effects of the order and consistency of natural laws. Look up "cumulative selection and protein domains" to find out why the mathematical models used to calculate the probability of DNA occurring by chance used by anti-evolutionists is wrong. Also look up "whole genome duplication" and "polyploidy" to see how genetic information can be doubled rather quickly. Look up the "Triangle of U" and "comparitive genomics", too.

Look up "Monte Carlo Methods" and "genetic programming" to see how random events can be used to increase information.

For the record, I see evolution as the tool God used to create us and other life.

I have no problem with God and Creation either provided that such beliefs correspond well with the preponderance of evidence.

21
posted on 12/22/2009 11:27:14 AM PST
by Moonman62
(The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)

"For example, contrary to Darwinian orthodoxy, the fossil record actually challenges the idea that all organisms have evolved from a single common ancestor. Why? Fossil studies reveal a biological big bang near the beginning of the Cambrian period (520 million years ago) when many major, separate groups of organisms or phyla (including most animal body plans) emerged suddenly without clear precursors.

The evidence that you are trying to use to disprove evolution, falsifies creation.

Isn't cognitive dissonance a wonderful thing : )

24
posted on 12/22/2009 11:41:13 AM PST
by LeGrande
(The government wants to take over the entire Health Care industry to fix Medicare and Medicaid.)

Are you under the impression we don't know that most IDers are long-agers? We can make common cause with IDers because they are doing a good job exposing your fellow evo-religious fundamentalists for what they are. And unlike the evos, the IDers are not using the evo-leftist power of the state to forcibly shut creationists out of the debate over origins. As such, we can work with IDers, as they are not a school for anti-science scoundrels like the Temple of Darwin and the human-caused global warming cult (which, btw, are primarily one and the same group of revolutionary evolutionists masquerading as “scientists”).

Gotta add: aren’t “missing parts” and “incomplete like most scientific models and theories” the same thing? More succinctly, aren’t “missing parts” and “imcomplete” actually synonymous? That’s all I was saying.

That said, you’re pointing to “cumulative selection and protein domains” was very helpful. Never really dug into that before. Answers a lot of questions I’ve had re: info content of DNA. Good stuff.

(BTW, my baliwack is really physics — or was, I’ve been out of it for a while. Still, this stuff is a fun read for me.)

28
posted on 12/22/2009 12:34:49 PM PST
by piytar
(Ammo is hard to find! Bought some lately? Please share where at www.ammo-finder.com)

Your inability to distinguish between GENUINE OBJECTORS to Darwinism and Creationists crack me up :)

Are there genuine objectors on FR? I wasn't aware of any.

The real objections to TOE aren't on the basic theory. There is simply too much evidence behind it.

The real legitimate questions regarding TOE are what it doesn't answer. How did life first start? What are the mechanisms that is life? etc. etc. Answering those questions might be like Einstein answering the Mercury orbit question, and it might completely transform the science. Force still equals mass times acceleration but now we know that energy equals mass. Newtons equations are still valid, but we have a much bigger picture now.

32
posted on 12/22/2009 1:24:31 PM PST
by LeGrande
(The government wants to take over the entire Health Care industry to fix Medicare and Medicaid.)

My reply was in response to the frequent identification of those who question the basic premise of Darwinism with Literal 6 day creationists.

First, a basic fact: while many intelligent design proponents believe in a Creator (which is their world-view right), not all do. Some hold that some immanent principle or law in nature could design the universe. That is: to believe in intelligent design is not necessarily to believe in a transcendent creative being.

However, what is rhetorically significant is the further fact that the term creationist is very often used today in a derogatory way.

Traditionally, the word was used to describe the world view that God created the universe, a belief shared by many ID scientists, and even some ID critics. But now, that same term is too often used dishonestly in an attempt to associate intelligent design, an empirically-based methodology, with Creationism, a faith-based methodology.

Some Darwinist advocates and some theistic evolutionists seem to feel that if they can tag ID with the Creationist label often enough and thus keep the focus away from scienceif they can create the false impression that ID allows religious bias to leak into its methodologyif they can characterize it as a religious presupposition rather than a design inference then the press and the public will eventually come to believe that ID is not really science at all.

In short, anti-ID ideologues use the word creationist to distract from a scientific debate that they cannot win on the merits. The only real question is whether someone who uses this dubious strategy is doing so out of ignorance (having been taken in by it, too) or out of malice.

Newtons equations are still valid, but we have a much bigger picture now.

Darwin's hypothesis does not rest upon equations, but rather observation and supposition. I suspect you know this already, but I wanted to clarify this for the rabble.

I do not doubt the basic hypothesis of evolution -- that life forms evolve, but the dynamism of any organism's genetic code, combined with recent and reputable observation, does point to a better theory which is far more, how do I say, Lamarckian in nature.

Unlike simply noting the similarities and differences between certain populations in various stages of isolation and drawing conclusions as to the mechanism by which those variations have arisen, the process of measuring, experimenting, observing, predicting and re-confirming, say, how phenotype alterations write themselves into the genotype is how real science occurs.

If you throw out observations because they do not conform to your hoped for outcomes is not real science.

Thus; back to the AGW topic, when half of the Russian temp data is thrown out because it fails to demonstrate the hoped-for warming of IPCC "scienticians", we see bad science.

My reply was in response to the frequent identification of those who question the basic premise of Darwinism with Literal 6 day creationists.

I would be correct 99 out of a 100 times doing that : ) I can accept those odds.

First, a basic fact: while many intelligent design proponents believe in a Creator (which is their world-view right), not all do. Some hold that some immanent principle or law in nature could design the universe. That is: to believe in intelligent design is not necessarily to believe in a transcendent creative being.

Do you see the flaw in your logic? How can you believe in intelligent design without an intelligent designer?

If you can overcome that flaw in your logic, maybe the rest of your post might have a point.

35
posted on 12/22/2009 5:01:15 PM PST
by LeGrande
(The government wants to take over the entire Health Care industry to fix Medicare and Medicaid.)

I do not doubt the basic hypothesis of evolution -- that life forms evolve, but the dynamism of any organism's genetic code, combined with recent and reputable observation, does point to a better theory which is far more, how do I say, Lamarckian in nature.

I kind of agree. I have been reading some interesting stuff, try this http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sapolsky09/sapolsky09_index.html it is on how toxo can affect behavior.

Thus; back to the AGW topic, when half of the Russian temp data is thrown out because it fails to demonstrate the hoped-for warming of IPCC "scienticians", we see bad science.

The New Zealand and Australian adjustments are even more clear cut. It is becoming very clear that Jones et al cherry picked their sources, added heat to the UHI and cooled the past. That is how they created the hockey stick.

I was one of the people who submitted a FOI to HADRCUT.

37
posted on 12/22/2009 5:39:25 PM PST
by LeGrande
(The government wants to take over the entire Health Care industry to fix Medicare and Medicaid.)

I would be correct 99 out of a 100 times doing that : ) I can accept those odds.

And where did you get that figure ? Did you do a scientific Survey ?

Do you see the flaw in your logic? How can you believe in intelligent design without an intelligent designer?

That is not MY logic. I am simply quoting what other ID supporters believe in. Please do not confuse me with the people I read and quote. If you carefully read what I wrote I said --- Some hold that some immanent principle or law in nature could design the universe.

If you can overcome that flaw in your logic, maybe the rest of your post might have a point.

Your argument is with these people who hold this belief, not me. I simply quote them as I read them.

That is not MY logic. I am simply quoting what other ID supporters believe in. Please do not confuse me with the people I read and quote. If you carefully read what I wrote I said --- Some hold that some immanent principle or law in nature could design the universe.

You have my apologies. I mistakenly took you for a creationist or an ID'er. Sometimes sarcasm can be a little too subtle for me.

Again, please forgive me for lumping you in with the fundies.

40
posted on 12/22/2009 7:31:55 PM PST
by LeGrande
(The government wants to take over the entire Health Care industry to fix Medicare and Medicaid.)

The fraud rampant throughout the attempts to establish AGW beyond the shadow of a doubt is so reminiscent of that of the history of Darwinism in its vain and frenzied attempts to establish the ToE beyond any doubt.

If you can’t find the evidence in the field to support your theory, either manufacture it yourself, or, by assuming the conclusion, misinterpret the evidence in light of that.

43
posted on 12/22/2009 8:59:12 PM PST
by metmom
(Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)

People who twist Scripture to fit some man-made theory that they have about how things must have happened by relying on the subjective, agenda driven interpretation of the data they collect, are a disgrace to God’s name.

I can’t imagine anything more disgraceful to God than someone who calls themselves a Christian, calling Him a liar and teaching others the same.

47
posted on 12/23/2009 5:25:46 AM PST
by metmom
(Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)

" The evidence that you are trying to use to disprove evolution, falsifies creation."

The evidence itself neither proves nor disproves anything. It is the interpretation of evidence through a preferred philosophical paradigm and logical fallacy that leads you to believe you are looking at 'proof' or 'falsification'. There are only philosophical positions, not empirical ones.

"Isn't cognitive dissonance a wonderful thing : )"

Apparently... :-)

50
posted on 12/23/2009 6:36:58 AM PST
by GourmetDan
(Eccl 10:2 - The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.